In addition to my duties as Robert’s ghost-blogger, I also spend about 15 minutes each day pinning his products onto various Pinterest boards. It’s pretty mindless work, and it gives me a chance to wander around the TeachersPayTeachers store and see what all the other sellers are up to, which gives me ample time to advise Robert on what he should be doing to improve sales and generally beef up his store. Here’s what the conversation usually sounds like:

Robert, you need to make your things more cutesy.

I don’t do cutesy.

But if you made your things cuter, you’d sell a lot more of them.

I DON’T do cutesy.

But don’t you understand, if you did, then…

Emily, whose the boss? Who signs your paycheck?

You haven’t payed me yet…

You get the point: Robert is one stubborn nut, and asking him to budge is a waste of my time and wits. With this being among the many points of contention between us, Robert decided I should use this blog post to defend the cause of cutesy.

What “cutesy” does to Robert…

Before I can defend anything, I decided I had to get to the root of Robert’s antagonism towards all that is cute. Robert, being the person he is (that is, a white, 54 year old male), did not have much to say about subject. I pressed him over and over again, and the closest thing I could get to a detailed reason was “I don’t like cutesy. It bothers me.”

Robert’s idea of “cute”

My only familiarity with psychology is based on what I remember from Saturday morning cartoons, but I think I have some inkling of why Robert maintains an aversion to cute. As I said before, Robert is a man, and while he is far from being snobbish (good heavens, he buys $4 wine by the case and serves it at dinner parties!), he is also somewhat insecure about his masculinity. Yes, he does “manly” things like participating in endurance swims in the Hudson River and constantly reminds me not to show up at a knife fight with a curling iron, but at the same time, he was raised around 2 sisters and a mom, and chose to work in a profession that is female dominated. Add to the fact that he has 2 daughters and lives with my mom and her two daughters, and you can see that he clearly needs an outlet to assert his manliness.

Robert maintains that “cutesy” is discriminatory and is often used by teachers to “dress-up” products that are “thin” on content. He finds them overly-feminine, and, that by portraying children as little adorable angels with big eyes and cutesy smiles, these products pander to the female teachers’ tastes, rather than elevating that of the students’. Of course, this is Robert’s philosophy, which he admits is based on a freshman year class called “Introduction to Feminist Semiotics” that he took at Brown University back in….wait for it…. 1977!

Robert’s idea of “cutesy”

At the same time, Robert thinks all this discussion of cutesy is designed to drive him batshit crazy: he loves the visual jokes he puts into his product. His latest prank was to place a photo of the U.S. Secretary of Education into the top left corner of one of the product covers, identifying it as “Arne Duncan Approved.” What you have to know is that the only person Robert detests more than Michelle Rhee is… Arne Duncan! And so it goes…

You want my advice? I personally think cutesy has some kind of place in the classroom. How else could we get girls to become interested in math? What do you think: do you like cutesy? Do you use it to motivate your students?

Robert replies: Really, Emily? Must I read this? Can you just tell my fan(s) about the excellent quesadillas with mango salsa I made last night?

Having gone to a high performing math and science high school (not to brag), I’ve taken many a math exam.

The ghost’s humble alma mater..

I’ve endured the PSATs, SATs, math APs, and teacher created assessments that lasted me through calculus. The subject itself was never my strong suit, but on top of everything else, I panic when it comes down to the wire. Heck, I usually draw a complete blank when I take math exams, not because I don’t study, but because the fear of what may be on the exams just freaks me out! Who knows, maybe if I didn’t have that problem I would have aced all my math classes and exams (poor me, I had to settle for “most.”) I am confident that I could have done significantly better had I learned some practical skills to cope with my fear and anxiety, which would have no doubt been more effective than the exhortation to “work harder.”

Robert, who hoped to start a PhD program this fall, took the GREs a few weeks back. He did a few practice tests to prepare and, even with numerous distractions in the background (like earning a living and feeding himself), it appeared he was going to score pretty well, despite not having taken an actual math course in over 20 years. In the days leading up to the exam, Robert was almost unbearably nonchalant and confident (he’s been in the math game for 30 years, after all), yet at the same time he dismissed GRE prep as a sham and convinced himself that he could “outsmart” the test by inhibiting his anxiety, getting a good night’s sleep, and drinking a giga-dose of caffeine the next morning.

When he came home after taking the real thing, he reported the feeling of “shock and awe” at both the length and complexity of the exam; the math section was much more difficult than he was led to believe and with the clock running, he left several questions blank. To make things worse, he actually started to panic when an additional math section appeared on his screen.

Time’s Passing; Will Robert?

Oddly enough, for a person who spends most of his time training children and teachers to be patient and perseverant when tackling difficult math problems, Robert suffered a minor “freak out” during the final math section of the exam. In the end, he posted spectacular scores on the writing and verbal analysis section (98% percentile), while earning what he considered a “mediocre” rating on the math tasks (that is, if you believe that scoring better than 79% of the other test takers constitutes mediocrity.)

The opening activity in this workshop is “googling” the phrase “math anxiety” (spoiler alert: this search will return a lot of hits.) While many teachers, particularly in high school and college level mathematics courses, dismiss anxiety as an “excuse” for poor performance, there is more than enough evidence to prove that the phenomenon is real and problematic.

So how to minimize the issue…Robert counsels ease off on the pressure, for one. By doing this, the emphasis should be on real learning and understanding rather than memorization or getting the “right answer in the shortest amount of time.” In point of fact, Robert points out, this is how “real” mathematicians operate. It’s not like they go into work each day, sit down at a computer and solve 35 problems on linear algebra in 30 minutes. From the dawn of education, mathematics has been seen more as philosophy than a blood sport. We all know that Archimedes did not figure out whether the king’s crown was actually made of solid gold in 5 minutes; it took a warm bath to develop the insight that led to his “eureka!” moment. Would that we could all have the luxury of warm baths to meditate on implicit differentiation and the Taylor expansion…

Besides approaching mathematics at a measured pace, Robert advocates cooperative learning between students as a huge asset—something that, unfortunately, I didn’t come to learn until later in high school. In my experience, it was often the case that my classmates could explain things better to me than teachers, plain and simply because they were more familiar with my language. And finally—and I whole-heartedly agree with this point, as partial credit has always been my best friend—praise students for their efforts, rather than “smarts”. It shows that you believe in their capacity to grow and develop as budding mathematicians, rather than fixing their place as “good” or “struggling.”

So take a breather, go through problems and concepts step-by-step, and see what students are having trouble with along the way. Build a solid foundation for problem solving instead of diving right in. It’ll make a world of difference. (Robert’s comment: this is not at all helpful, so I’m striking it out. It’s too reasonable for me, so I’m going to add my own coda.)

Let it be known: it is my opinion (Robert) that mathematics by its very nature is anxiety provoking: let’s accept it as a truth and live with it on those terms. The best we teachers can do is acknowledge it and put into practice techniques that will “turn down the heat.” I actually do a full day workshop on this; it’s not something that you can just read about in a bunch of bullet points and “do.” It requires a major attitude shift, that involves altering our language, expectations and even our very role as professionals.

You can read about Robert’s freak-out and recovery from the GREs at his “other” blog, which is slightly more off-kilter than this.

When Robert first decided to write this blog, he received a piece of advice which he was free to use or ignore: anything with an unpronounceable name will not be memorable. Many “helpful” made punny and generally simpler suggestions to Robert about a possible relaunch of his store (all in the English language, I might add,) but they were dismissed out of hand. Because Robert is adamant about his blog’s (and store’s) uniqueness and provenance, I’ve decided to take some time and address the name, since it will be sticking around for the foreseeable future.

Samizdat (you can probably sound it out yourself, although it does resonate better if you know the Cyrillic alphabet) refers to the clandestine publishing system that originated and blossomed during the era of the Soviet Union. It was an act of rebellion against the repression of the time, which involved the publication and circulation of censored works. Of course, those who were involved risked being sent to prison or exile, and the movement became a symbol of independence and freedom from oppression. In the context of of the mathematics educational complex, though, SamizdatMath represents a unique, “going against the grain” method of product development. It stands for an approach that uses straightforward, sophisticated techniques that develop higher-level thinking and problem solving skills, free from the cutesy pandering that appears in many written materials. I also it to promote his love of obscure American culture, whether it is by incorporating the images of 1940’s R & B legend Louis Jordan, or referencing the “Sunday Night Mystery Movies” from the 1970’s.

SamizdatMath’s second, albeit less-understandable connection is to the late David Foster Wallace’s monumental work, Infinite Jest. The plot of the book (which I admit I haven’t read, although at over 1,500 pages, it does make for a convenient tofu press) involves the circulation of a self-published film which has the ability to invoke joy in its viewers; in fact, the ecstasy is so great that watching even short segments results in permanent paralysis. Without giving anything away, the film ends up being used to advance the political agenda of a revolutionary group and is referred to obliquely as “The Samizdat.” Whether or not Robert’s materials will inexplicably fill you and your charges with joy is unbeknownst to me, but either way, I imagine hitching SamizdatMath to the genius that is “Infinite Jest” is all to the good.

After laying this all on the line, I’ve come to appreciate the thought and significance behind “SamizdatMath” as the name of the publishing organ given to Better Living Through Mathematics. It tells you something about both the materials and their designer, and quite honestly, it suggests that there is something special (and a bit quirky) going on here. If it were to be renamed something like “Robert’s Learning Emporium,” I doubt you’d be equally intrigued. Plus, you’d be able to pronounce it, and really, what fun is that for anyone?

What do you think about the name “SamizdatMath”? Do you find it interesting or off-putting? How much do you think a store’s name affects its success?

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